Electronic hearing aids of various types for use by hearing impaired individuals are well known in the art. In the development of electronic hearing aids various techniques have been developed to process hearing aid signals to improve the hearing aid's ability to overcome the hearing impaired individual's hearing problem. These signal processing techniques include the use of the mechanical insert filters, active and passive filters, venting, binaural fittings, directionality, and a variety of automatic gain control circuits. In addition, other attempts have been made to improve hearing aid performance by precise, individualized adjustment of compression ratios, frequency bandwidth, output-limiting levels, and functional frequency gain levels. As contrasted with the aforementioned signal processing techniques, digital signal processing is directed to changing the audio signal in some manner to increase the ability of an individual with impaired hearing ability, to hear. In a hearing aid, signal processing implies the real time processing of a digital signal to changed the signal in some manner to render it easier to hear. Signal processing in the sense of data processing implies the manipulation of digital data, which may or may not represent an occurring event, but in general does not modify any communication signal in real time. Digital signal processing for a hearing aid has been attempted in the past by the use of a high speed microprocessor. These prior art hearing aids, however, require a multiplicity of peripheral devices for the proper operation of the hearing aid system. These peripheral devices include memory devices, input/output devices, analog to digital converters, digital to analog converters, etc., so that the complete hearing aid system is too large and requires too much current for practical use as a body-worn hearing aid. It is also recognized that the software algorithms of digital signal processing have been available for more than twenty years, but has not resulted in a digital signal processor capable of processing hearing aid data in real time for use as a practical, wearable, hearing aid. The prior digital signal processors required the audio signals to be processed to be first stored for the purposes of processing. The processing of such stored data required hours, or even days, for processlng, thus rendering the techniques impractical for a wearable hearing aid. To our knowledg, digital signal processing in real time in a body-worn hearing aid utilizing a high speed digital signal processor has not been commercially available, and/or accomplished heretofore.